Apto Commercial Real Estate Blog

Commercial real estate brokerage is an inherently risky industry, and it can be difficult to get transparency into your business when you're working through complex deals that can take years to close. Sometimes it probably seems like deals can fall through at the drop of a hat.

It might seem difficult to predict when a deal will come through, but the truth is that you can and should track your pipeline. It is possible to better manage the risk involved and get some level of visibility into your cash flow. After all, if you ran a retail store or restaurant franchise and didn’t have any reporting on the business, how long do you think you'd last?

Try this template to keep track of your pipeline

The good news is there are lots of tools out there that provide reporting capabilities. The only bad news is that you’re out of excuses to not track every deal!

A few notes on how to use it effectively

At first glance, you’ll notice a few different colors. Every deal should be color coded based on probability to close. You can choose your preference, but you should group deals into three buckets. We break it down this way:

Green ≥ 75%

Yellow = 51-74%

Blue ≤ 50%

This simple system lets you see at a glance where to focus your efforts. Green deals have momentum, so if things are feeling a bit chaotic, focus on what it takes to get those across the finish line. When you have a little more time, ask yourself what you need to do to turn the yellow deals green.

When you’re ready to level up, do this

If you’re ready for fully organized data and a system that puts it to work for you, get a quick demo of Apto today. Our CRM and sales tools give brokers what they need to keep track of their business, better serve clients, and close deals faster.